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Unions continue to undermine the independence and effectiveness of citizens bond oversight committees at California school and community college districts.

In December 2015, the elected board of trustees for the Rancho Santiago Community College District voted 4-2 to reject an application from the President & CEO of the long-established Orange County Taxpayers Association to serve on the college district’s Measure Q bond oversight committee. For two years, the obviously-qualified applicant had sought an appointment from the board to a vacant position on the committee.

This vacant position was designated in state law (California Education Code Section 15282) for someone “active in a bona fide taxpayers’ organization.” The board had never filled it.

Eventually the board found its champion for the taxpayers. On February 22, 2016 – exactly three years after the deadline for people to apply for the bond oversight committee – the board appointed a taxpayers’ association representative. The lucky appointee claimed to be active in the “Middle Class Taxpayers Association,” an organization founded in 2011 that is closely connected to labor unions. This board action is another example of the continual union-instigated chipping away of checks and balances at California local governments.

Independent citizens bond oversight committees for school and college bond measures were once portrayed as a taxpayer protection. They were established in state law in 2000, when Governor Gray Davis signed into law Assembly Bill 1908, the “Strict Accountability in Local School Construction Bonds Act of 2000.” This requirement for independent oversight was promoted during the successful fall 2000 campaign to convince voters to approve Proposition 39, which reduced the voter threshold for passing certain school and community college bond measures from two-thirds to 55 percent.

Sixteen years later, the appointed and elected leadership of school and community college districts in California has shifted to a new generation. Many of these leaders (and the special interests that support them) don’t appreciate legal restrictions meant to assuage the ancient concerns of a dwindling demographic of fiscal conservatives.

In some districts, bond oversight committees are regarded as time-wasting meddlers that interfere with how bond finance and construction has to be done nowadays in California (keeping the politically-powerful happy with favoritism and payoffs). And among all the activities of bond oversight committees, none is more irksome to these school and college districts than the demand to study and make a recommendation on the fiscal impact of a proposed Project Labor Agreement. It’s embarrassing and even politically threatening when independent citizens dare to evaluate the cost of a board mandate lobbied for by unions.

Rancho Santiago Community College District, based in Santa Ana (in Orange County) is an example of one such district. In November 2012, voters authorized the district to borrow $198 million by selling bonds. In April 2014, after a year of negotiations with unions, the board voted 4-2 to require contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement for most work funded by that borrowed money.

In February 2013, separate from this process, the President and CEO of the Orange County Taxpayers Association applied for the taxpayers’ association position on the college’s new Measure Q Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. The board appointed the other members but left the taxpayers’ association position vacant, in violation of state law.

Almost two years later, a couple of board members pushed for an agenda item for the board to finally fill the vacant taxpayers’ association position. The board responded on December 7, 2015 with a 4-2 vote to reject the Orange County Taxpayers Association applicant.

It was rumored that construction trade union officials had told their allies on the board to reject the Orange County Taxpayers Association applicant because of the group’s past criticism of government-mandated Project Labor Agreements. A few months later, on February 22, 2016, the board finally complied with state law by appointing a former site representative and Political Action Coordinator for the California School Employees Association Chapter 41.

In her very brief application submitted to the district on February 16, 2016, the victorious appointee declared “I am a member of the Middle Class Taxpayers Association, and with so many middle class families in Santa Ana, I look forward to being considered for the Measure Q Oversight Committee.” The board appointed her to the position.

Kevin Dayton is the President & CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DaytonPubPolicy.

Numerous local K-12 school districts and community college districts throughout California have entangled themselves in controversies over facilities construction funded by borrowed money obtained through bond sales. These controversies include the irresponsible sale of Capital Appreciation Bonds, inappropriate expenditures using bond proceeds, and questionable contracts for bond underwriting, construction program management, and project delivery. There has even been overt corruption.

An informed California taxpayer would probably conclude that stronger independent oversight is needed for bond finance and facilities construction at the state’s local educational districts. And, in fact, there is a structural check and balance now established in state law that can be assigned responsibility for greater oversight: the citizens’ bond oversight committees at school and college districts.

Construction Unions Resent Independent Oversight of Bond Measures

But the people of California should expect in 2016 to see their state government weaken – not strengthen – the powers of citizens’ bond oversight committees. These committees aren’t necessarily popular. Some district administrators and their lawyers and consultants apparently regard these committees as a meddling annoyance at best or an infuriating hinderance at worst. They certainly won’t object to weaker bond oversight committees.

Independent citizens’ bond oversight committees have credibility with elected board members, the news media, and the public. They hold an official, formal role within a government to review policies and issue recommendations. They represent specific grassroots citizen constituencies in the community such as taxpayers, senior citizens, and parents. And they can generally review policies and make honest recommendations without worrying about political retaliation from special interests that provide campaign contributions, volunteers, and infrastructures.

Not surprisingly, citizens’ bond oversight committees usually don’t see an advantage in requiring construction contractors to sign a labor agreement with terms and conditions negotiated between union representatives and school district representatives. Why would a public agency want to impose a requirement in bid specifications that would obviously cut competition and raise costs of construction?

Bond Oversight Committees Were Meant to Protect the Interests of Taxpayers

In 2000, Governor Gray Davis and the Democrat-controlled California legislature enacted a state law mandating independent citizens’ bond oversight committees under certain conditions. This was part of a strategy to increase the passage rate for school and community college bond measures. Voters needed to be convinced that their interests as taxpayers would be protected even if the threshold for passage of school and college bond measures dropped from a two-thirds supermajority to a 55% supermajority.

The strategy worked. Voters approved a statewide ballot proposition reducing the threshold from two-thirds to 55%, and the passage rate for educational bond measures increased from 55% (from 1987 through 2000) to 82% (from 2001 through 2014). Educational districts were compelled to create and manage citizens’ bond oversight committees, although not always in compliance with state law.

There was no indication in 2000 that citizens’ bond oversight committees would object to government-imposed union monopolies for construction contracts. After all, the elected boards of only two local educational districts in California (the Los Angeles Unified School District and the West Contra Costa Unified School District) had considered Project Labor Agreement mandates at that time. The chaotic, raucous battles at California local governments over Project Labor Agreements had not yet become routine.

But as school and college bond measures became more frequent and much bigger in size after 2000, unions began aggressively lobbying school and college districts for Project Labor Agreements on facilities construction. Some citizens’ bond oversight committees were disturbed by this union pressure to change long-standing contracting policies (never mentioned during the bond measure campaigns) and decided they had a responsibility to make a recommendation on them. And the committees could cite state laws that gave them the authority to make such a recommendation:

1. California Education Code Section 15278 (b) states that “The citizens’ oversight committee shall actively review and report on the proper expenditure of taxpayers’ money for school construction.” Project Labor Agreements are never referenced in ballot language for bond measures (they are almost always implemented after voters approve the borrowing) and therefore it is debatable whether or not it is proper.

2. California Education Code Section 15278 (b)(5) says the citizens’ bond oversight committee has responsibility for “Reviewing efforts by the school district or community college district to maximize bond revenues by implementing cost-saving measures, including, but not limited to…” The reference to “but not limited too” was legislative intent for the Oversight Committee to have the authority to review matters such as unorthodox bidding requirements. Because unions (incredibly) claim PLAs are cost-saving measures, the bond oversight committees certainly have authority to review such proposals.

At the end of this article is a comprehensive list of actions taken by citizens’ bond oversight committees about Project Labor Agreements.

Unions May Try to Use the State Legislature to Neutralize Another Structural Check and Balance

What can unions do to suppress the independent activism of citizens’ bond oversight committees? Can the unions convince the legislature and Governor Brown to weaken citizens’ bond oversight committees, and can they do it without harming the ability of K-12 school and community college districts to win bond measures?

Opponents of Proposition 39 argued correctly in 2000 that the citizens’ bond oversight committee requirement used to promote Proposition 39 was based on a law passed by the legislature and would not be safely lodged in the California Constitution. That law could be repealed or amended by the legislature at any time.

That time is likely to be 2016.

The November 2016 ballot will include a $9 billion statewide bond measure. In addition, more than 150 school and college districts in California are expected to place a bond measure on the presidential primary and general election ballot. Unions want monopoly control of this work, and they don’t want to deal with continued flowering of local community resistance through bond oversight committees.

Since Governor Brown was elected in 2010, union lobbyists at the state capitol have diligently chipped away at structural checks and balances so they can realize the potential of a “one-party state” to achieve social change. For example, unions have been working for five years to neutralize powers granted to charter cities and other local governments under the California Constitution.

With the exception of political columnist Dan Walters, few political observers have highlighted this union-driven movement in California to centralize governance at the state capitol at the expense of local governments. In particular, construction union interests always seem able to preempt local control despite Governor Brown’s alleged support for the governance principle of “subsidiarity.”

Explaining the decision to strip power from citizens’ bond oversight committees will not be a challenge. Few Californians understand the cynicism and emptiness of policymaking at the California State Capitol. Unions will convince their legislative allies to justify weakened citizens’ bond oversight committees with arguments that they are broadening accountability and allowing educational districts to divert resources to the classroom.

And even if the citizens’ bond oversight committees are transformed into empty shells with no authority to review or make recommendations on anything of substance, voters are likely to continue approving 82% of bond measures (or perhaps 90% or higher in 2016 when Hillary Clinton is on the ballot). School and community college districts will continue to declare to voters in prominent ballot language that there will be independent citizens’ oversight of bond expenditures. Districts and their bond measure campaign consultants will assume – probably accurately – that 95% of voters won’t know the difference, and the other informed 5% had planned to vote against the bond measure anyway.

Watch for union-sponsored bills in 2016 that tackle their problem of independent citizens’ bond oversight committees.

History of Actions of Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committees on Project Labor Agreements

Although the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee at Los Angeles Unified School District – established locally through Proposition BB – was aware that the district and unions were negotiating a Project Labor Agreement in 1997-1999, the committee did not issue any statements or recommendations about it. This Project Labor Agreement preceded the passage of Proposition 39 in 2000.

On November 10, 2003, the Bond Oversight Committee for San Jose Unified School District voted 8-1 for the following motion: “At its meeting of November 10, the Measure F Oversight Committee was not convinced that adoption of a PLA would improve the efficiency of the expenditure of Measure F funds. The Oversight Committee therefore requests the Board of Education to refrain from adopting a PLA for Measure F.” The one vote against the resolution was an organizer for the local Carpenters union. In the end, the school board never voted on a negotiated Project Labor Agreement.

2. Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District

On February 24, 2004, the Bond Oversight Committee for Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District voted unanimously to recommend against approval of a PLA for future school construction. The school board subsequently voted 4-3 against negotiating a Project Labor Agreement.

3. Mt. Diablo Unified School District

On March 3, 2005, the Bond Oversight Committee for Mt. Diablo Unified School District voted 15-1 to recommend against approval of a PLA for future school construction. In the end, a Project Labor Agreement was imposed on some summer classroom renovation projects.

4. Sacramento City Unified School District

On August 3, 2005, members of the Bond Oversight Committee for Sacramento City Unified School District released a 15-page report backing their position that “since a problem does not seem to exist with regard to construction cost overruns, project delays or labor disputes within the district, and since clear and convincing evidence has not been submitted to substantiate the benefits of a Project Stabilization Agreement, the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee recommends that the Sacramento City Unified School District not enter into a Project Stabilization Agreement.” The school board subsequently voted 5-1 for a Project Labor Agreement.

5. Chabot-Las Positas Community College District

On July 25, 2006, the Bond Oversight Committee voted 4-2 to recommend to the board against using a PLA and to include this recommendation in the oversight committee’s annual report. District administrators and legal counsel argued that the oversight committee had no business making a recommendation. The college board voted 7-0 for a Project Labor Agreement.

By 2006, administrators and contract attorneys for school and college districts were obviously trying to suppress the desire of citizens’ bond oversight committees to review proposed Project Labor Agreements. A narrow legal interpretation about the role of bond oversight committees began circulating. This interpretation essentially confined the committees to a role of approving an annual report produced for the district showing that proceeds from bond sales were spent on construction and not on teacher and administrator salaries or general operating expenses.

From 2006 through 2015, numerous K-12 school and community college districts in California considered and approved Project Labor Agreements with unions. While some oversight committees received reports at their meetings from district staff about the proposed Project Labor Agreements, only four citizens bond oversight committees voted on a formal recommendation.

6. San Diego Unified School District

An editorial in the April 24, 2009 San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the district’s opposition to letting the bond oversight committee review Project Labor Agreements:

The policy was hastily adopted without any real scrutiny by district staffers. Voters were never told this costly requirement would be imposed before Proposition S was approved – or else they never would have approved it. But when members of the bond measure’s Independent Citizens Oversight Committee raised these and other issues, they were told to butt out. Mark Bresee, the school district’s general counsel, told committee members that their role as an “independent representative of all taxpayers” – Bresee’s term – didn’t mean they had a right to kibitz about the district’s possible adoption of a Project Labor Agreement…Thankfully, the bond oversight committee told Bresee and the school board majority to take a hike.

Then, as reported in the Voice of San Diego on May 26, 2009:

Staffers from San Diego Unified discouraged the bond oversight committee from weighing in on whether or not to adopt an agreement or how to do so, arguing that the research was so polarized and the question so political that there was no way to make a factual recommendation. The bond overseers disregarded their advice, then deadlocked on the issue of whether a contractor group should join the unions and the school district and the bargaining table.

That vote on May 21, 2009 was 4-4-1, and union officials had been prominent in contending that the oversight committee had no authority to discuss the issue. The board subsequently voted 3-2 for the Project Labor Agreement.

7. San Gabriel Unified School District

In 2010, the Bond Oversight Committee for recommended against a Project Labor Agreement. The board subsequently voted 3-2 for the Project Labor Agreement.

8. Oxnard Union High School District

On December 9, 2014, the district’s Citizens Bond Oversight Committee voted 4-1 to recommend that the board reject a Project Labor Agreement because of the likelihood of increased costs and other reasons. Nevertheless, the board voted 3-2 for a Project Labor Agreement.

9. San Bernardino Community College District

The bond oversight committee voted on December 12, 2014 to oppose the Project Labor Agreement, but the board voted 4-3 to approve it. Here is an excerpt from one of its reports:

More notable was the Board of Trustees passing a “Community Benefits Agreement” this December. This agreement is better known as a “Project Labor Agreement”, and these agreements give substantial advantages to union contractors vs. non-union contractors. The Bond Oversight Committee spent a significant amount of time and effort to determine if there was cost savings, as required under Section 5 of California Educational Code 15278. We gathered information from local businesses, trade groups, staff and other interested parties, and determined there was no clear cost savings, and a potentially significant (10-20%) cost increase with no benefit to the community. The committee made every attempt to communicate this decision to the Board, but we were not allowed to make our findings to the Board prior to the Board of Trustees voting to approve this agreement.

Despite consistent opposing arguments from student organizations and local stakeholders, as well as not taking the time to even hear the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, regardless of our clear desire to present our well-researched findings and conclusion, the Community Benefits Agreement was approved. This rush to make a decision prior to hearing our report we find irresponsible, and we wish to make these actions known to the public.

Now, in 2015, citizens’ bond oversight committees in a high school district and a community college district in San Diego County want to hold meetings to discuss proposed proposed Project Labor Agreements and possibly make recommendations to the boards about the proposal. Union officials are unhappy about this. One request has been granted and one has been rejected.

10. Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District

At the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, the board voted 3-2 to delay a vote on negotiating a Project Labor Agreement in order to give the Bond Oversight Committee a chance to discuss the proposal and provide input to the board. That meeting is scheduled for November 12, 2015.

11. Sweetwater Union High School District

Despite repeated requests from representatives of its citizens’ bond oversight committee for a chance to make a recommendation, the board of the Sweetwater Union High School District shows no indication of letting that happen. As reported in the October 30, 2015 San Diego Union-Tribune, “Members of the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee criticized the board’s lack of transparency and called for a four-month moratorium to allow for study of the costs and benefits, to no avail.” The October 31, 2015 Chula Vista Star-News explained the view of one board member that the district has to pass the Project Labor Agreement in order for the bond oversight committee to know what’s in it:

Trustee Paula Hall brought the resolution to negotiate a project labor agreement forward. Hall said she has been having issues with her email so she didn’t get a chance to read the CBOC’s letter for a moratorium, but is aware of their concerns from them speaking out at previous board meetings. Hall said the board never sent the item to the CBOC because there is no information for them to look over as the board only passed a resolution. “There’s nothing to review,” she said. “There is no project labor agreement negotiated.”

It remains to be seen if the citizens’ bond oversight committee at Sweetwater Union High School District will ever get the chance to review a Project Labor Agreement and make a recommendation.

Kevin Dayton is the President & CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DaytonPubPolicy.

The eastern suburbs of San Diego (“East County”) have been and are still regarded as politically conservative. But even this area isn’t impervious to the political movement in California toward European-style social democracy. Labor unions and their political allies have recently gained political control of an East County local government and are now exercising their power.

Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District is a union Project Labor Agreement target.

But there is resistance. While the suburbs of San Francisco and Los Angeles have largely surrendered to “Progressive” policies during the past 20 years, there’s still a well-organized, well-funded effort in the San Diego region to defend fiscal responsibility, fair and open competition for government contracts, and freedom of choice for contractor employees. This effort will be tested at the October 20, 2015 meeting of the elected board of trustees of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District.

Unions Angle for a Monopoly on Suburban Educational Construction

As seen at many suburban educational districts in California, leadership in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District has shifted during the past few election cycles from traditionally pragmatic board members to board members who are interested in social change and supported by union interests. One recent subtle indication of this transformation was a board endorsement of rather unconventional political activists speaking on campus. Now, the board is becoming more aggressive and obvious in advancing a new agenda through the college.

This means construction companies will have to sign a deal negotiated by the college district’s representatives and union representatives. Left out of the negotiations will be contractors and their business associations, including associations that traditionally negotiate labor agreements. Contractors have one role: sign the agreement someone else negotiated for them.

Adopting a government-mandated Project Labor Agreement is contrary to specific language included in the district’s August 7, 2012 bond resolution. That language was meant to assure voters in the November 2012 election that the district wouldn’t require contractors to sign a union agreement as a condition of working on projects funded by the $398 million Proposition V bond measure. Here is the language:

(j) …the District will promote fair and open competition for all District construction projects so that all contractors and workers, whether union or non-union, are treated equally in the bidding and awarding of District construction contracts…

Contrary to common sense and legislative intent, the district now claims that this provision actually means it is allowed to require its contractors to sign Project Labor Agreements. The district’s argument is based on a web of federal and state laws and court decisions often interpreted to mean that if a contractor chooses not to operate like a union company or a worker chooses not to be represented by a union, they’re not victims of discrimination.

23 states ban government-mandated Project Labor Agreements.

Instead, they’re simply making a free choice to refuse to abide by conditions that a government – as a participant in the marketplace – establishes for awarding a contract. In other words, if you choose not to be affiliated with a union, don’t complain. You’re still free to bid on a different project, find another job, find another trade or profession, or join the exodus of the rest of your kind and leave California for Texas, Florida, or the 23 states that ban Project Labor Agreements.

Groups Decide to Expose the Scheme to the Public

Presumably the college district’s board and administrators haven’t been too worried about pulling this bait-and-switch on voters. In 2000, 53% of California voters approved Proposition 39, which reduced the voter approval threshold for most school and college bond measures from two-thirds to 55%. In the following 15 years, the accountability and oversight protections in the California Constitution and in state law related to Proposition 39 have been narrowed, whittled away, and neutralized to virtual uselessness.

Nowadays California school and college districts routinely circumvent or evade state laws regarding school construction finance and implementation. Their lawyers and advisors exploit every ambiguity in law to justify finance and spending decisions that voters never would have tolerated. (Using bond proceeds – borrowed money that must be paid back with interest – to buy iPads for students is one of many examples.)

Public accountability is infrequent. Legal or political consequences are rare. But in this case of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, people are determined to expose and stop it.

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association issued a press release revoking its 2012 endorsement of Proposition V if the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District board votes for the Project Labor Agreement. Its endorsement in 2012 has been predicated on the bond resolution that committed to fair and open bid competition on district construction funded by Proposition V.

To increase public awareness of the betrayal, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association also sent a mailer informing voters of the Project Labor Agreement vote:

At the same time, the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction – a statewide organization with significant strength in San Diego – also sent a mailer informing voters of the Project Labor Agreement vote:

Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction Mailer on Grossmont-Cuyumaca Community College District Project Labor Agreement for Prop V

It’s expected that the board of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District will vote on October 20, 2015 to negotiate a Project Labor Agreement with unions. They are bound to the unions like a contractor and its employees are bound to a Project Labor Agreement. But their political careers may end when East County citizens living in the district express their opinions with their own votes.

Kevin Dayton is the President & CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DaytonPubPolicy.

http://californiapolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LOGO_v2_white_269x70.png00Kevin Daytonhttp://californiapolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LOGO_v2_white_269x70.pngKevin Dayton2015-10-17 22:31:292016-12-14 05:12:54Community College Board in California Will Be Accountable to Voters

Has California school and community college facility construction become a perpetual government stimulus program for politically-favored construction trade unions?

Fifteen years ago, it was obvious that many school and college districts in California needed new construction, modernization, or renovation of their facilities for the safety and comfort of students, teachers, administrators, and support staff. That’s why 53% of California voters approved Proposition 39 in November 2000. It reduced the threshold for voter approval of school bond measures from two-thirds to 55%, increasing the passage rate for educational bond measures from under 50% to more than 80%.

But the purpose of borrowing money for school construction seemed to evolve after the 2008 economic collapse and subsequent November 2008 election.

Debt started piling up from relentless and repeated bond sales to investors. The “need” for more construction seemed immeasurable and unquenchable. Scandals began to pop up as clever people began to figure out how to manipulate the loopholes and ambiguities in ten year-old state laws regarding finance and construction of educational facilities.

Meanwhile, construction trade unions became much more aggressive in trying to monopolize educational construction by lobbying elected school board members for Project Labor Agreements. And local school and college elected boards became much more willing to grant those union monopolies.

Local elected officials in California recognized that political circumstances had changed. To quote a San Diego Unified School District board member immediately before the 3-2 vote on May 26, 2009 for a Project Labor Agreement:

I think the bigger picture that people are realizing – and this is what scares some people – is that San Diego is changing, the United States is changing…this is a different city…we are looking at a different community.

What has resulted from this change? A lot of debt has been imposed on future generations of Californians.

In response to this report, some taxpayer advocates have asserted that momentum for additional local educational bond measures is propelled by construction trade unions that see local education districts as ripe targets to accumulate a pool of guaranteed government work. Union leaders remain nervous about the state’s economic prospects. They don’t want a painful revival of membership unemployment rates of 25%-50% experienced from 2009 to 2012.

Is this argument valid?

Below is a list of all of the K-12 school and college bond measures approved by voters in the last four primary and general elections (in 2012 and 2014) that became targets of construction unions for a government-mandated Project Labor Agreement (PLA).

Bond Measures Approved by Voters in June 2012

Amount Authorized to Borrow

Name of School or College District

Voter Approval Percentage

Project Labor Agreement Activity

West Valley-Mission Community College District

$350,000,000

59.8%

Board approves PLA for upcoming “pilot project” 8/20/13.

Milpitas Unified School District

$95,000,000

64.1%

Board approves PLA 12/11/12.

Bond Measures Approved by Voters in November 2012

San Diego Unified School District

$2,800,000,000

61.8%

PLA approved in 2009 extends to this bond measure.

Coast Community College District

$698,000,000

57.2%

Board votes 5/15/13 to end consideration of a PLA.

Oakland Unified School District

$475,000,000

84.4%

PLA approved in 2004 extends to this bond measure.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District

$385,000,000

68.1%

Board discusses PLA 11/20/14.

Board votes for contract to negotiate PLA 4/16/15.

West Contra Costa Unified School District

$360,000,000

64.4%

PLA approved in 2000 extends to all bond measures.

Cerritos Community College District

$350,000,000

70.3%

Board discusses PLA 4/16/14 and 6/4/14.

Solano Community College District

$348,000,000

63.5%

Board approves PLA 12/4/13.

Sacramento City Unified School District

$346,000,000

70.1%

Board votes 1/23/14 to extend PLA approved in 2005 to this bond measure.

Rancho Santiago Community College District

$198,000,000

72.6%

Board approves PLA 3/24/14.

Alum Rock Union Elementary School District

$125,000,000

79.5%

Board approves PLA 6/18/13.

East Side Union High School District

$120,000,000

71.6%

Revised PLA approved in 2009 extends to this bond measure.

Lynwood Unified School District

$93,000,000

57.4%

Board approves PLA 2/12/13.

Inglewood Unified School District

$90,000,000

86.1%

Board approves PLA 10/26/12.

Chula Vista Elementary School District SFID No. 1

$90,000,000

68.8%

Board approves negotiations for a PLA 4/15/15.

Oxnard School District

$90,000,000

66.4%

Board approves PLA 6/24/15.

Sacramento City Unified School District

$68,000,000

67.9%

Board votes 1/23/14 to extend PLA approved in 2005 to this bond measure.

Antioch Unified School District SFID No. 1

$56,500,000

62.8%

Board approves PLA 11/13/13.

Whittier City Unified School District

$55,000,000

72.4%

Board approves PLA 1/13/15.

Washington Unified School District

$22,000,000

72.8%

Board imposed a union-backed apprenticeship requirement for contractors and used it to disqualify non-union company from contract.

Board imposed a union-backed apprenticeship requirement for contractors and used to disqualify non-union company from contract.

Bassett Unified School District

$30,000,000

62.4%

Board voted for PLA negotiations 1/20/15.

Kevin Dayton is the President & CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DaytonPubPolicy.

Quantifying and Explaining California’s Educational Construction Debt

Whatever voters are asked to approve in 2016 will not launch a new program to fix long-neglected schools to serve a rapidly expanding state population while providing smaller class sizes. That thinking is a legacy of the 1990s that still seems to endure today despite 14 years of most bond measures passing at a 55 percent threshold for voter approval. Arguments for another state bond measure in 2016 ignore or downplay how local school and college districts and the state obtained authority in the past 14 years to borrow $146.1 billion for educational construction.

If voters are not told or reminded of recent borrowing patterns, how can voters make an informed decision on future borrowing? To rectify the lack of availability of statistics on total bond debt in California for educational facility construction, the California Policy Center collected, synthesized, and analyzed data regarding California educational construction finance. The California Policy Center believes it is the first and only entity to painstakingly research and present an accurate and comprehensive record of all state and local educational construction bond measures considered by voters from 2001 through 2014.

The amount of authority approved by voters is a higher percentage than the percentage of the number of bond measures approved by voters because larger bond measures proposed by larger districts passed at a higher rate than smaller bond measures proposed by smaller districts.

Table 2: Local Educational Bond Measures Considered by California Voters After Passage of Proposition 39 in November 2000

Number on Ballot

1147

Number Approved

911

Number Rejected

236

Percentage Approved

79.42%

Percentage Rejected

20.58%

Amount Proposed to Authorize

$124,350,056,744

Amount Proposed to Authorize (including 16 reauthorizations)

$125,080,421,744

Amount Authorized

$109,620,418,737

Amount Authorized (including 16 reauthorizations)

$110,350,783,737

Amount Rejected

$14,729,638,007

Percentage of Authority Approved (including 16 reauthorizations)

88.22%

Percentage of Authority Rejected (including 16 reauthorizations)

11.78%

Amount Authorized Through Three Statewide Bond Measures

$35,766,000,000

Total Amount Proposed to Authorize (State and Local Bond Measures)

$160,116,056,744

Total Amount Proposed to Authorize (State and Local Bond Measures) (including 16 reauthorizations)

How Did It Become So Easy to Pass Bond Measures?

A new era of generous borrowing for educational construction in California was inaugurated by the enactment of Proposition 39. Approved by 53.4% of voters in the November 7, 2000 election, it reduced the voter approval threshold for most educational construction bond measures from two-thirds to 55 percent. (Because the measure imposes restrictions on districts using the new 55 percent threshold, a minority of districts have continued to propose measures requiring a two-thirds vote.)

This lowered obstacle apparently encouraged local educational districts to take the risk of proposing many more bond measures at much higher amounts for voters to approve. As shown in Tables 3 and 4, dropping the voter threshold from 66.67% to 55% transformed the approval of educational bond measures from a 50-50 chance to a commonplace outcome.

As shown in Table 5, between now and 2055, California’s taxpayers will pay about $200 billion in principal and interest payments to investors who have bought bonds issued by the state and by local educational districts in order to get funding for facility construction.

Table 3: Local Educational Bond Measures Considered by California Voters After Passage of Proposition 39 in November 2000

Table 5: Total Amount of Debt Service for Educational Facility Construction

Amount for 642 School and College Districts for Which Voters Approved Bond Measures Since Proposition 39 Passed in 2000

$136,867,456,924

Amount for Three Bond Measures That Voters Approved for State of California Since Proposition 39 Passed in 2000

$56,668,673,695

Estimate for Several Dozen School Districts Where Voters Approved Bond Measures Only Before Enactment of Proposition 39 or Lack Data

$2,000,000,000

Estimated Amount for Several Bond Measures That Voters Approved for State of California Before Proposition 39 Passed in 2000

$4,500,000,000

Approximate Total

$200,000,000,000

How Was Debt Service Determined?

California Policy Center researchers identified, calculated, and tallied aggregate debt service for almost all of the 642 California local educational districts in which voters approved borrowing money for construction through bond sales after the election of November 7, 2000. On that date, California voters approved Proposition 39 and reduced the threshold for voter approval of most bond measures for construction from two-thirds to 55 percent.

This debt service data was obtained using tables included in about 650 “Official Statements” posted on a publicly-accessible and free-to-use Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website administered by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB).

What are these statements? Federal law generally requires underwriters in a primary offering of municipal bonds of $1 million or more to obtain and review an Official Statement from the issuer of those bonds. (Many smaller bond offerings also have Official Statements.) In a dense report of more than 200 pages, these statements disclose financial information meant to inform a potential buyer and reduce the chance of “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices.”

Official Statements include a chart that indicates how much aggregate principal and interest the issuer of the bonds would owe each year if the bonds weren’t refunded (“called in” or redeemed so that new bonds can be issued at a lower interest rate) or paid off early. California Policy Center researchers entered each district name into the EMMA system, identified the most recent bond offering or bond refunding from the list of bond issues, downloaded the associated Official Statement, located the aggregate debt service chart, and calculated the total debt service for 2015 and/or later years.

Using these Official Statements to extract data required diligence. Firms that produce the statements do not use a specific standard format, so the aggregate debt service table appears in different places. Tables differ in title, format, or details of content. Older Official Statements are not optimized for word searches. A few tables do not total up the annual debt service, thus forcing the user to convert the table into a spreadsheet and calculate the total using a formula. A handful of Official Statements outright lacked aggregate debt service tables.

Tables may even contain erroneous data. After some confusion, researchers realized that an Official Statement for the Napa Valley Unified School District contained major errors. It indicated total debt service as $77 million instead of the actual $665 million and also indicated a November 5, 2002 bond measure as authorizing $219 million instead of the actual $95 million. This was an unfortunate district to have an erroneous Official Statement: a California Watch article published in the San Francisco Chronicle just three months before the Official Statement was posted identified the Napa Valley Unified School District as a district where taxpayers will eventually “pay dearly for bonds.” In 2009 it borrowed $22 million through Capital Appreciation Bond sales that will cost $154 million by the time the last bonds in the series mature forty years later, in 2049.

Researchers also had to be cautious about accurately identifying school districts with similar names. For example, Central, Oak Grove, and Columbia are words shared by more than one school district. And “College School District” in Santa Barbara County is not a community college district. Some of the inconsistencies found in cross-referencing various sources for bond measure data seem to be a result of misidentifying districts with similar-sounding names.

Even after these challenges were overcome, researchers recognized that the list of debt service for school and college districts needs to be considered with some caveats. (Table 6 is “Cautionary Considerations When Evaluating Current Debt Service Data for School and College Districts.”) Researchers are also aware of arguments that debt service — even when considered with other financial data — is not always a useful way to assess whether or not school or college districts have been irresponsible in their choices for debt finance of facilities construction. A few of those arguments are listed in Table 7: Why Some Analysts Downplay Debt Service Data.

Despite these potential limitations, aggregate debt service amounts available through Official Statements posted on EMMA provide new insight into the long term debt obligations owed by California local educational districts for facilities construction. This data set represents a major advance in informing Californians about the tremendous debt accumulated by educational districts that borrow money for school construction by selling bonds.

Table 6: Cautionary Considerations When Evaluating Current Debt Service Data for School and College Districts

1

For some school or college districts, debt service may be relatively low compared to the total amount authorized to borrow because those districts haven't issued all of the bonds (or any of the bonds) yet. When those districts sell all of the bonds in the amount authorized by voters, debt service will be higher.

2

An educational district in a wealthy area can have high debt service but also have high and stable total assessed property value. That high debt service may be inappropriate, but it is not as risky as the same debt service in a less affluent district with unstable property values and an uncertain economic future.

3

Some California educational districts do not have debt service listed in the appendices because they recently sold bonds through “private placement.” These transactions do not require Official Statements to be posted on EMMA. Without an Official Statement, long term debt obligation from bonds is more difficult to obtain. And when obtained through annual financial reports, that number may be outdated compared to information available in an Official Statement.

4

The appendices indicate all aggregate debt service for 642 districts in which voters approved bond sales since Proposition 39 was enacted in 2000. This means there may be some distortions when comparing data, for the following reasons:

Aggregate debt service listed for districts may originate from bond measures approved by two-thirds of voters as far back as 1987 and up through November 7, 2000. This means that debt service for some districts may appear disproportionately high relative to the amount authorized by voters to borrow from 2001 through 2014.

There are a handful of districts that have current debt service resulting from bond measures approved in 2000 or earlier but have not asked voters to authorize additional borrowing since the November 7, 2000 election. That debt service is not included in the grand total reported here.

Likewise, California voters approved several ballot propositions before Proposition 39 was enacted in 2000, including a $9.2 billion bond measure passed in 1998 that included $6.7 billion for K-12 school districts and $2.5 billion collectively for community college districts and the California State University and the University of California campuses.

5

Several K-12 school districts have merged in the past 15 years. Some Official Statements segregate debt service for the districts before they merged, and some combine the debt service.

6

Several community college district and K-12 school districts have created “School Facilities Improvement Districts” carved out from the complete jurisdiction of the districts. Some Official Statements segregate debt service for these sub-districts, and some combine the debt service for the sub-districts with the debt service for the complete district.

7

Debt service tables in Official Statements do not account for Bond Anticipation Notes, Certificates of Participation, lease revenue bonds, and other ways that educational districts borrow money.

8

Community Facilities Districts funded by Mello-Roos bonds are not included in Official Statements.

How Educational Districts Acquire and Manage Debt

It’s likely that most California voters have limited familiarity with the organization and governance of their local school and community college districts. When voters authorize their local educational districts to borrow money for construction by selling bonds, presumably they trust that the local school or college district will exercise prudence in managing the process.

Sometimes their trust is betrayed.

To discourage abuse of the school construction finance system, voters need to be aware of how their local government is organized and managed. They also need to realize that state law does not explicitly give Independent Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committees broad authority to review construction programs funded by bond measures.

How can voters become informed about bonds and the process of borrowing money for educational construction through bond sales? Is there a way to explain in clear plain language what actually happens after voters approve a bond measure and authorize a school or college district to borrow money via bond sales?

Bonds Help Local Governments Borrow Money to Better Serve the People

When people talk about municipal securities or municipal bonds, they’re talking about state governments or local governments borrowing money from investors with the promise to pay it back to them later, with interest. Municipal (derived from the Latin word municipium, meaning a free city) simply means a local government, such as a county, city, water district, sanitation district, irrigation district, utility district, transportation district, cemetery district, mosquito vector district, and many other kinds of special districts formed by the people to serve the people. And it includes school districts and community college districts.

Despite a lack of public attention to bonds, this method of debt finance is important, especially for governments such as California’s school districts and community college districts that want to initiate or continue major construction programs. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar recently described the importance of municipal bonds:

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the municipal securities market. There is perhaps no other market that so profoundly influences the quality of our daily lives. Municipal securities provide financing to build and maintain schools, hospitals, and utilities, as well as the roads and other basic infrastructure that enable our economy to flourish. Municipal bonds’ tax-free status also makes them an important investment vehicle for individual investors, particularly retirees. Ensuring the existence of a vibrant and efficient municipal bond market is essential, particularly at a time when state and local government budgets remain stretched.

Such comments are appreciated by state and local governments as murmuring continues in Washington, D.C. that income from municipal bonds should lose tax-exempt status.

Basic Information About California K-12 School Districts

In the case of a local elementary school district (kindergarten though eighth grade), high school district (ninth through twelfth grade), or unified school district (kindergarten through twelfth grades), voters elect a board of trustees (often called a “school board” or a “board of education”) to oversee operations of the school district and make major decisions as representatives of the people. The board appoints a District Superintendent and other professional administrators to handle day-to-day management of the district.

In addition, each county has an elected County Board of Education and an elected County Superintendent of Schools with specific responsibilities. There is also a State Board of Education appointed by state elected officials to oversee education policies that are common for all school districts in the state. There is also a State Superintendent of Schools elected by the people of California.

Table A-1 (“California K-12 School Districts 2013-2014 – Ranked by Enrollment”) lists 945 elementary school districts, high school districts, and unified school districts with enrollment tracked by the California Department of Education as of June 15, 2015.

Basic Information About California Community College Districts

In the case of a local community college district, voters elect a Board of Trustees (often called a “college board” or a “governing board”) to make decisions for the college district as representatives of the people. There is also a Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges appointed by state elected officials to oversee education policies that are common for all college districts in the state. The Board of Governors appoints a Chancellor of the California Community Colleges and other professional administrators to handle day-to-day management of the state college system.

Boards for the University of California and California State University systems are appointed by state elected officials and not directly chosen by the people.

As of June 15, 2015 there are 72 community college districts in California with 112 colleges. (Some districts contain multiple colleges.) Table A-2 (“California Community College District Enrollment Fall 2014 – Ranked by Number of Students”) lists these districts.

What Are the Independent Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committees?

To strengthen the arguments for Proposition 39 in 2000, the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 1908, the “Strict Accountability in Local School Construction Bonds Act of 2000,” with these stated intentions:

Vigorous efforts will be undertaken to ensure that school and college districts spend the proceeds of bond measures, including those passed under criteria of Proposition 39, in strict conformity to law.

Taxpayers will directly participate in the oversight of bond expenditures.

Members of the oversight committees appointed for these purposes will promptly alert the public to any waste or improper spending of money borrowed through bond sales.

Unauthorized expenditures of school construction bond revenues will be vigorously investigated, prosecuted, and restrained by the courts.

A school or college district board must appoint an independent citizens’ bond oversight committee with 60 days after the board enters the election results in its minutes. The committee must include at least seven members to serve for a term of two years and for no more than two consecutive terms. District employees, officials, vendors, contractors, or consultants are prohibited from serving on the committee, and it must include at least one “active” representative of the following groups:

a business organization, located within the district, representing the business community

a senior citizens’ organization

a bona fide taxpayers’ organization

for a school district: parents or guardians of children enrolled in the district

for a school district: parents or guardians of children enrolled in the district who are also active in a parent-teacher organization, such as the Parent Teacher Association or school site council

for a community college district: students who are currently enrolled in the district and also active in a community college group, such as student government

for a community college district: organizational support groups of the district, such as advisory councils or foundations

These committees have several responsibilities listed in state law meant to ensure the district spends bond proceeds only on projects listed in the ballot statement and avoids spending bond proceeds on ineligible projects, programs, or “teacher or administrative salaries or other school operating expenses.” State law also assigns these committees to review “efforts by the school district or community college district to maximize bond revenues by implementing cost-saving measures.”

The committee does NOT have a explicit oversight role for how the district pays for these construction projects, and a narrow interpretation of the law could claim that oversight committees do not have legal authority to review bond sales. However, the California League of Bond Oversight Committees (CalBOC) believes these committees have the authority to review and comment on the structure of bond issues under the provisions for reviewing “cost-savings” measures. Districts often defer to legal counsel for interpretations of the responsibilities and limitations of oversight committees.

A Private Organization Has Taken Responsibility for Independent Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committees

Currently a private organization is providing services and advice to oversight committees. The California League of Bond Oversight Committees (CalBOC), founded in 2006, is a non-profit public service organization that filled a need for training, education, and legislative advocacy for the state’s bond oversight committees.

This arrangement has shortcomings. A private organization is dependent on voluntary financial contributions and a committed volunteer leadership, and it lacks power to take action against educational districts that fail to comply with state laws. Membership and involvement is dependent on the motivations and self-initiative of individual bond oversight committee members. CalBOC does not have any professional staff to monitor districts, collect data, and provide it to the public.

In addition, school districts can discourage oversight committee members from participating in the California League of Bond Oversight Committees, and some school district administrators openly disparage it. Some district administrators and legal counsel don’t want oversight committees interpreting their purpose broadly and consuming district staff time and district funds on investigations outside of a narrowly-defined purview.

The author of this report has been and continues to be a member of the Advisory Committee for the California League of Bond Oversight Committees (CalBOC).

Translating School Finance Decisions For Ordinary People to Understand

For many Americans, the phrase “stocks and bonds” evokes the image of an established and wealthy investor. Someone who buys a stock becomes an owner of a corporation, and someone who buys a bond becomes a creditor who is owed money by a corporation or a government. It’s likely that more Americans could explain stocks than could explain bonds.

The lack of public awareness or knowledge about bonds may be attributable to the complex provisions of certain bonds and the fact that bonds typically do not offer the very large potential returns offered by equity in growing firms.

Bonds rarely get news media attention outside of a few financial wire services such as Bloomberg, Reuters (which had a “MuniLand” blogger), and specialty publications such as The Bond Buyer. And in popular culture, depictions of bond brokers have been mainly limited to two books by Tom Wolfe: The Bonfire of the Vanities (subsequently made into a movie) and I am Charlotte Simmons.

What Is a Bond?

Some technical definitions of a bond are listed in Table 10. But rather than focusing on the definition of a bond, Californians need to focus on what a bond does in practice.

For a school or community college district, issuing (“selling”) bonds means the district borrows money for a specific length of time from investors with the obligation to return all of that money to them when that time period ends. The amount borrowed is called the principal.

During that length of time the district pays a fee to the investors, either on a regular basis (for Current Interest Bonds) or accumulated with compounded interest at the end of the time period (for Capital Appreciation Bonds). The amount paid is called interest.

The term of maturity between borrowing the money and paying back the money with interest can be one to three years (short-term bonds) or decades (long-term bonds). Under California law, a school district or community college district cannot issue a current interest bond with a maturity over 40 years. As a result of Assembly Bill 182 enacted in 2013, California local governments are now prohibited from issuing Capital Appreciation Bonds with a maturity over 30 years.

AB 182 allows a school district or community college district to issue Current Interest Bonds bonds with a term of maturity between 30 and 40 years. The district must use that borrowed money for projects with a “useful life” that equals or exceeds the term of maturity.

What Are “General Obligation Bonds” Referenced in Ballot Language for Bond Measures?

Corporations and state and local governments issue bonds to raise money. Bonds sold by local governments are called municipal bonds. An appealing aspect of many municipal bonds for investors is their tax-exempt status.

Municipal bonds such as those sold by California school districts and community college districts for construction are called general obligation bonds, meaning they are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the districts. These districts theoretically have legislative power to collect enough money through property taxes, other borrowing, selling assets, or other sources of revenue to fulfill their obligation to make payments on the bonds when due. Those taxes are collected from property owners in the district. (Revenue bonds are another kind of municipal bond, paid off through tolls, lease payments, user fees, or other service payments.)

Comparing Current Interest Bonds to Capital Appreciation Bonds

When voters are asked at an election to approve a bond measure to pay for construction at a school district or community college district, they generally have been told that a “Yes” vote will authorize the sale of general obligation bonds to fund that construction.

California educational districts are issuing two kinds of general obligation bonds: Current Interest Bonds and Capital Appreciation Bonds. Usually the district does not tell voters what kind of general obligation bonds it will sell, unless it specifically passes a resolution before the election stating it will not sell Capital Appreciation Bonds and includes that condition in the ballot statement.

1. Current Interest Bonds (also called Fixed Rate Bonds)

These are the “traditional” kind of municipal bonds. A buyer of Current Interest Bonds gets a periodic interest payment (usually semi-annually). When the bond matures, the buyer gets the principal back.

2. Capital Appreciation Bonds (also called Zero Coupon Bonds)

A buyer of Capital Appreciation Bonds does not receive semiannual or other periodic interest payments. Instead, the buyer receives all of the interest – compounded over the length of maturity for the bond – together with the principal when the bond matures. There is no regular payment of interest, but the accumulated (“accreted”) interest is compounded over many years, making the wait a worthwhile investment. Capital Appreciation Bonds are purchased at a deeply discounted amount from their face value.

Capital Appreciation Bonds are discussed in more detail in Section 5.

Two Costs to Educational Districts of Borrowing Money Via Bonds

From the perspective of the school district, the additional financial cost of borrowing money by selling bonds as opposed to spending money from the district general fund results from (1) interest and (2) transaction fees.

Interest

If someone borrows $1000 for five years from a lender at an annual interest rate of 5 percent, the borrower and the lender agree that the borrower will pay back the $1000 over five years and also pay 5% of that $1000 ($50) multiplied by five years for a total of $1250. The borrower gets the $1000 immediately to use, and the lender earns annual interest income of $50 over five years for a total of $250. Both parties consider themselves to get a benefit from the transaction.

Likewise, if a school district issues a traditional $1000 Current Interest Bond at an annual interest rate of 5 percent with a five-year term of maturity and an investor buys the bond at its face value of $1000, the school district gets the $1000 immediately to use for construction, and the investor earns annual interest income of $50 over five years for a total of $250. When the five years are over, the investor gets the $1000 back. Both parties get a benefit from the transaction. In addition, the investor does not have to pay taxes on the interest.

School districts usually sell series of bonds as a package with different maturities and interest rates.

Transaction Fees (Issuance Fees)

Bond buyers are not the only party to make money from bonds issued by California school districts and community college districts. Similar to taking out a mortgage, a variety of parties in the financial services industry are involved in the preparation and sale of bonds, and each party gets a fee for participating in the transaction. These fees are classified as “costs of issuance.”

To prevent these fees from cutting into the amount of money authorized by voters for construction, educational districts routinely inflate the interest rates on bonds they sell so that the price is higher than the face value of the bond. After the bonds are sold, that extra money, or “premium,” is used to pay the costs of issuance.

Table 8: Types of Issuance Fees

underwriter’s discount

bond counsel fees

disclosure counsel fees

paying agent fees

escrow agent fees

rating agency fees

bond insurance fees

verification agent fees

financial advisor fees

printing fees

other miscellaneous expenses

How are Municipal Bonds Bought and Sold? Who Buys Them?

Municipal bonds are not traded on an exchange like stocks. Instead, investors buy and sell bonds “over the counter” through dealers and brokers registered with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), a self-regulatory organization overseen by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These dealers and brokers act as underwriters or intermediaries between issuers and investors. They charge fees, or “mark-ups” for the transactions.

Once a school district sells a bond, the bond can be traded in the municipal bond market. The price will fluctuate and investors will be concerned about yield — the amount of income earned as prices rise and fall.

According to Federal Reserve statistics, individual investors hold a little more than two-thirds of municipal bonds, about 42 percent directly and about 28 percent through mutual funds and other investment vehicles. Major institutional investors include asset management firms, insurance companies, and commercial banks.

One of the arguments to cap or eliminate the federal tax exemption for income from municipal bonds is that the exemption mainly benefits wealthy individuals who buy bonds as a tax-exempt investment. Buyers of municipal bonds do not generally “keep the money in the community” because they aren’t in the community. And they generally do not buy bonds issued by educational districts to “help the children” or “provide vocational training to veterans.” They buy them to make money.

Ironically, the same Progressive activists who call for higher taxes on the rich also tend to support educational bond measures that help the rich to earn investment income that is tax-free. Forcing the rich to pay taxes on income earned through municipal bonds could collapse the demand for these bonds and make borrowing money for construction a much more expensive proposition for school and college districts.

Table 9: Some Advantages for Investors in Municipal Bonds

Interest earned on municipal bonds is usually exempt from federal and state income tax.

In the case of general obligation bonds, principal and interest are secured by the full faith and credit of the issuer and usually supported by either the issuer’s taxing power. Despite negative nationwide publicity about a relatively small number of bankrupt local governments (such as the California cities of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino), a government defaulting on municipal bonds is “extremely infrequent,” according to Moody’s. They are thus a relatively safe investment.

In the case of Current Interest Bonds, investors get a regular interest payment, usually semi-annually. There is a regular, dependable income stream.

In the case of Capital Appreciation Bonds, investors can earn a substantial amount of interest over a long period of time through compounding while still enjoying the relatively safe investment of general obligation bonds.

How Does an Educational District Pay Back the Borrowed Principal Plus Interest on Bond Sales?

People pay back the principal and interest on car loans, school loans, and mortgages using their income. Educational districts pay back the principal and interest on bonds using their “income,” that is, taxes collected from property owners in the district.

After a school district or community college district borrows money by selling bonds for construction, it informs the county auditor and county treasurer/tax collector. Based on the assessments of property value determined by the county assessor, the county treasurer calculates the appropriate tax rate and generates individual tax bills for owners of property such as houses, farms, apartment buildings, commercial buildings, manufacturing facilities, business infrastructure, and undeveloped land. A specific rate and tax for each bond measure is listed on the tax bill.

These taxes are called ad valorem taxes. Ad valorem is Latin for “according to worth” and indicates that taxes are levied (imposed) on property owners in proportion to the assessed value of their property.

Does Renting or Leasing Mean That You Don’t Pay for Educational Construction or the Cost of Borrowing Money for It?

Households that rent property or businesses that lease property do not pay property taxes directly. However, it is not true to claim or think that renters or lessees don’t have to pay for educational construction and the costs of borrowing money to pay for that educational construction. Property owners can and do incorporate the cost of their property taxes into their rents or leases. Bond sales by a school or college district may result in higher rent.

Technical Definitions of Bonds

Notice that the common term in all of these definitions is debt. When a school or college district sells bonds, it borrows money from investors and must pay them the money back over time, with interest.

Evidence of indebtedness payable, both principal and interest, from the proceeds of ad valorem property taxes that may be levied without limitation as to rate or amount upon property subject to taxation by the governing board of the school district or community college district.

Glossary on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) website

The written evidence of debt, which upon presentation entitles the bondholder or owner to a fixed sum of money plus interest. The debt bears a stated rate(s) of interest or states a formula for determining that rate and matures on a date certain.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website definition of municipal bonds

Debt securities issued by states, cities, counties and other governmental entities to finance capital projects, such as building schools, highways or sewer systems, and to fund day-to-day obligations. Investors who buy municipal bonds are in effect lending money to the bond issuer in exchange for a promise of regular interest payments, usually semi-annually, and the return of the original investment, or “principal.” The date when the issuer repays the principal, the bond’s maturity date, may be years in the future. Short-term bonds mature in one to three years, while long-term bonds generally will not mature for more than a decade.

Tax-exempt bonds are valid debt obligations of state and local governments, commonly referred to as “issuers” - the interest on which is tax-exempt. This means that the interest paid to bondholders is not includable in their gross income for federal income tax purposes. This tax-exempt status remains throughout the life of the bonds provided that all applicable federal tax laws are satisfied…Governmental bonds are tax-exempt bonds issued by a state or local government, the proceeds of which are generally used to finance activities or facilities owned, operated, or used by that or another government for its own purposes. This can include financing the building, maintenance, or repair of various types of public infrastructure such as highways, schools, fire stations, libraries, or other types of municipal facilities.

The System Is Skewed to Pass Bond Measures

Considering the advantages that supporters have in preparing and campaigning for a bond measure, perhaps it’s noteworthy that voters reject about 20% of local bond measures for educational construction. At every stage of the process, interests that will benefit from bond sales can take advantage of a system that favors passage of a bond measure. Some issues of concern include use of public funds to develop campaigns to pass bond measures, significant political contributions to campaigns from interests likely to benefit from construction, involvement of college foundations as intermediaries for campaign contributions, and conflicts of interest and alleged pay-to-play contracts.

It’s Not “Tough” Anymore to Pass Local Bond Measures for School and College Districts

Voters in 2000 who read the ballot argument in favor of Proposition 39 would have seen supporters claim that it would “require bonds to be passed by a tough 55% super-majority vote.” Perhaps a 55% threshold could be described as “tough” compared to approval by a simple majority of 50% plus one, but it certainly hasn’t meant passage is difficult to achieve in practice. Four out of five bond measures proposed under the criteria of Proposition 39 win voter approval. (See Section 3 for more information.)

Supporters might argue that the 80% voter approval rate for construction bond measures qualified under Proposition 39 simply reflects the view of a substantial percentage of Californians that school and community college districts need new and modernized facilities. But these views don’t develop in a vacuum.

An industry of campaign consultants helps educational districts to convince voters to approve bond measures. They have developed a formula that generally results in victory. Here are some of the most obvious tactics used to achieve that success rate of 80 percent.

Using Public Funds to Hire a Consultant for Voter Research That Is Subsequently Useful in the Election Campaign to Pass the Bond Measure

Many Californians would be astonished to learn that school and community college districts can use funds from their operating budget to develop a strategy to pass a bond measure. Yet this practice is common — and legal.

California law prohibits community college districts and K-12 school districts from using public funds or resources to campaign in support or opposition to bond measures. Education Code Section 7054 states “No school district or community college district funds, services, supplies, or equipment shall be used for the purpose of urging the support or defeat of any ballot measure…”

However, these same public resources CAN be used to provide information to the public about the possible effects of any bond issue or other ballot measure, as long as that information constitutes a fair and impartial presentation of relevant facts to aid the electorate in reaching an informed judgment regarding the bond issue or ballot measure.

A 2005 opinion from California Attorney General Bill Lockyer confirmed that it is legal for a college district (and a school district) to use district funds to hire a consultant to conduct surveys and establish focus groups to assess the following important conditions for a campaign:

The potential support and opposition to a bond measure, by gathering information and evaluating the potential for the adoption of a bond measure by the electorate.

The public’s awareness of the district’s financial needs.

The overall feasibility of developing a bond measure that could win voter approval.

According to the Attorney General, this is not “partisan campaigning.”

Of course, this professional research and analysis — paid for by taxpayers — puts a school or college district at a significant advantage for a bond measure campaign. Consultants determine which words and arguments are most effective in motivating various demographic groups in the district to vote for a bond measure. Consultants also determine which arguments would be most effective for opponents of a bond measure and how the school district can neutralize those arguments.

Further research is needed to reveal how often a “feasibility study” concludes that a bond measure is not “feasible.” Considering that the firm evaluating the feasibility of a bond measure may often be seeking future contracts with the district or the campaign committee, there may be a conscious or subconscious inclination to manipulate the survey questions or the results to obtain a deceptively positive recommendation. In his book Win Win: An Insider’s Guide to School Bonds, Dale Scott of Dale Scott & Company cites a case in which he suspects a consulting firm had self-interested motivations when it recommended that a school board place a bond measure on a June primary ballot rather than a November presidential ballot with an apparent better chance of passage. Voters rejected the bond measure.

Considering that voters approve about 80% of educational bond measures at the 55% voter approval threshold, cynics would argue the real purpose of surveys isn’t to determine “feasibility” but to use public funds to develop election campaign strategy. Based on promotional material of firms that specialize in feasibility studies for bond measures, the argument is valid.

Here’s an excerpt from a consulting firm’s website about how information from taxpayer-funded surveys can be used to improve the chance of election victory:

…an initial baseline survey can determine the overall feasibility and voter acceptance of a bond or parcel tax measure at different funding levels. It can test how voters respond to different versions of the ballot title and summary, and – through analysis of respondent demographics and past voting patterns – it can help determine which election calendar promises the greatest likelihood of success. The same survey can also determine the effectiveness of the rationales and arguments that might be offered for and against a bond or parcel tax measure, thus helping shape the communications themes that will explain how the measure addresses voters’ concerns… [Name of firm] works with its clients to perfect ballot language and voter pamphlet arguments, using our empirical data to guide our advice.

A second example:

Public opinion research is critical to packaging a revenue measure for success. School districts can maximize the dollars that they raise through general obligation bonds, Proposition 39 bonds, and parcel taxes by collecting pertinent voter opinion data and using this information to solicit support. [Name of firm] can help maximize your measure’s potential by providing accurate and reliable results…We provide both qualitative and quantitative research services in the following areas:

• Determining the arguments and features of the measure that will increase support

• Evaluating the need and content for a public information campaign

• Determining the best election in which to place the measure on the ballot

• Packaging a measure for success

A third example:

[Name of firm] understands that the research can be the first step not only in determining the feasibility of a potential revenue measure, but also in bringing together the various stakeholders and constituencies that will need to be involved and supportive in order for any ballot measure to be successful. We know that the issues facing the District do not exist in a vacuum and must be put into the context of the current political and cultural environment in the District. The voter opinion survey presents the District with an opportunity to hear from the administration, teachers, staff, Board, and other community stakeholders about their priorities. Involving key stakeholders in the research design leads to confidence in the research findings and helps ensure that the parties who are integral to a ballot measure’s success are on board and on the same page.

Even items scheduled on board meeting agendas to hire the consultant and then to review the survey results create a positive news opportunity for bond measure proponents. At this early stage in the process, potential opponents usually have not emerged to present a different perspective. And a finding of measurable strong support portrays a bond measure as something already broadly supported by community, thus convincing undecided individuals and organizations that the bond measure is worthy of support and discouraging individuals and organizations that might be inclined to oppose it.

Public Resources Used to Win a Bond Measure

A consulting firm for school bond measures has developed a “Finance Measure Checklist for Success” (see Tables 14 and 15) that outlines five steps for victory. A school district can fund and coordinate four of the five steps with public resources. Only the fifth and final step requires the district to “step away” from explicit political campaigning and pass primary responsibility to a separate political entity, such as a Political Action Committee.

By the time the “partisan campaign” begins, the community college district or K-12 school district has spent a year or longer obtaining polling data, alerting voters directly and through the news media to the need for school construction, and refining campaign themes and messages. A taxpayer-funded effort to pass it has been well underway, without a cent of money raised or spent by a campaign committee. Already the proponents have an advantage over any opposition to the bond measure.

Comparing the Election Campaigns of Supporters and Opponents

There is an existing network of professional political consultants who are experienced in establishing a campaign committee, collecting corporate campaign contributions, and communicating with voters using an effective message developed from the results of the district’s feasibility study. Political campaigning is a business, and fierce competition forces consulting firms to build and maintain a reputation for winning. Meanwhile, professional campaign vendors are ready to design, print, and mail campaign material. Endorsements can be quickly obtained from political, business, and community leaders. Participants in phone banks and precinct walkers can be recruited and even paid if a financial incentive is necessary.

In addition, potential district contractors are able to promote school bond measures through California’s Coalition for Adequate School Housing (C.A.S.H.), whose membership “contains over 1,500 school districts, county offices and private sector businesses, including architects, attorneys, consultants, construction managers, financial institutions, modular building manufacturers, contractors, developers, and others that are in the school facilities industry…C.A.S.H. has sponsored or supported over $52 billion in statewide school bonds to build and/or modernize thousands of schools.”

Contrast this to the typical opposition to a bond measure. Often there aren’t any formal opponents. Sometimes the opposition consists of a few individuals known in the community as gadflies or anti-tax or libertarian activists. Opposition can gain more credibility if there is an existing local community or taxpayer organization that provides a formal forum for fiscal critics to meet and strategize. That organization is almost always more effective if it employs full-time professional staff responsible to a board of directors.

In rare cases there is a well-funded opposition campaign backed by local business leaders and interest groups and run by professional political consultants. One example of this was opposition to Measure Z for the San Diego Unified School District in the November 2012 election.

Potential opponents must regularly monitor local news sources and the meeting agendas of local educational districts to know when an elected governing board is considering a bond measure and passes a resolution putting a bond measure on the ballot. Sometimes the board does this immediately before the legal deadline, thus providing very little time for opponents to respond before the election.

Concerned parties must meet to consider the bond measure and determine an appropriate position. Someone needs to know or obtain the various laws concerning the submission of an opposing argument in the ballot pamphlet, and someone needs to write the opposing argument and go through the process of getting group approval of the text. It needs to be submitted on time and in compliance with often-technical legal requirements. A few people in the organization must volunteer to write commentaries or letters to the editor of the local newspaper, and then follow through with the promise. Some people may chip in some money from their small businesses or personal savings to order some lawn signs, which have to be designed, approved, printed, and distributed.

Nonetheless, bond measures do fail almost 20% of the time despite the organizational and financial advantages of supporters. A 2003 report from the Public Policy Institute of California noted that big urban school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles area with high numbers of registered Democrat voters tended to propose more bond measures and win voter approval of those bond measures more often that smaller districts in rural areas, such as the Central Valley. This pattern appears to continue through 2014.

In some large urban school districts in California, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, bond measures always win easily and opposition seems futile. As long as these districts don’t propose bonds too frequently, they rarely have to worry about opposition.

Top Donors Are Current or Potential Contractors for Finance and Construction

Generally, the public has poor access to records concerning the contributions to and expenditures of campaigns to pass bond measures. In some counties the campaign forms must be obtained in person and are provided as photocopies. Other counties have electronic databases that simply link to scanned documents. Trying to compile or analyze campaign finance patterns would be a tedious undertaking.

Nevertheless, compilations of contributors to four campaigns to pass five bond measures in November 2012 suggest that what is commonly assumed is accurate: these campaigns are mostly funded by companies likely to earn money from the proceeds of those bond sales.

Table 16: Categories of Major Donors to Campaigns to Pass Bond Measures

Construction management firms

Law firms involved with bond sales

Architectural firms

Engineering firms

Construction contractors

Construction trade unions

Union-affiliated labor-management committees

Bond underwriters

Community college foundations (for community college bond measures)

Charter school advocacy groups

Community College Foundations Entangled in Controversy

A 2005 opinion of the California Attorney General (also referenced above in relation to bond underwriters and campaigns) determined that a community college district’s auxiliary organizations (such as foundations and student body associations) are legally able to contribute their own privately raised funds to a political action committee established specifically to advocate voter approval of a bond measure. It is routine to see community college foundations contributing to bond campaigns. Like any 501(c)3 non-profit, college foundations are permitted to spend up to 20% of expenditures for influencing legislation, and that includes bond measures.

Controversy arose about this practice in 2004 after the Sierra College Foundation contributed about $100,000 to three bond measure campaigns for the Sierra Community College District. Neither the Political Action Committees nor the Sierra College Foundation reported the contributions to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

At least two board members alleged that the college president, who estimated making 40 presentations to groups of prospective donors, had tried to hide the identities of contributors to the bond measure campaigns (including architects and engineering firms) using the Foundation as an intermediary. These board members also believed that people interested in contributing to the bond campaign were advised to make their contributions to the Foundation instead of the bond measure campaign committee in order to benefit from a tax deduction. The Placer County Civil Grand Jury ended up concluding there wasn’t any reliable evidence to support these accusations against the college president, but the incident exposed some of the potential problems with college foundations acting as a intermediary to fund campaigns to pass bond measures.

Alleged “Pay-to-Play” by Some Bond Underwriters Gets Attention

In the spring of 2012, there was a flurry of news media attention about some bond underwriters making contributions to campaigns for bond measures and subsequently making money through issuance fees as the underwriter for the bond sales. The news article that broke the story reported the following:

Leading financial firms over the past five years donated $1.8 million to successful school bond measures in California, and in almost every instance, school district officials hired those same underwriters to sell the bonds for a profit, a California Watch review has found. The practice is especially pronounced in California, where underwriters gave 155 political contributions since 2007 to successful bond campaigns for school construction and repairs.

Under an amendment to Rule G-37, adopted in 2010, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) requires each broker, dealer or municipal securities dealer to send a form quarterly to the MSRB reporting their contributions to bond ballot campaigns if those contributions exceeded $250. These contributions do not prohibit brokers from doing business with the entity proposing the bond measure, but the reporting requirements allow the public to identify these contributions as part of any effort to cross-reference them with contracts. Other rules prohibit brokers from doing business with entities if they have made campaign contributions to entity officials who make decisions related to selecting brokers for bond issues.

In 2009, the MSRB considered toughening Rule G-37 to prohibit brokers from doing business with government entities if those brokers contributed to campaigns to pass bond measures proposed by those government entities. California was cited as a particularly notorious location for the appearance of “pay-to-play” relationships. In the end, the MSRB declined to change the rule, citing constitutional First Amendment concerns.

The Bond Buyer reviewed broker contributions to 2010 campaigns to pass bond measures in California and identified “a nearly perfect correlation between broker-dealer contributions to California school bond efforts in 2010 and their underwriting subsequent bond sales.” A spokesperson for California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer responded to the review: “…it is probably time to end the days when underwriters, bond counsels or financial advisors fund, manage or provide other key support for local bond campaigns, then get paid to do work on the bond sales.” In 2013, the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector Mark Saladino adopted “a complete ban on cash and in-kind contributions from all firms in our underwriter pool starting no later than when we renew our pool for another year in January 2014.”

Tables of contributors to campaigns to pass bond measures in the November 2012 election for Sacramento City Unified School District (Measures Q and R), Solano Community College District (Measure Q), West Contra Costa Unified School District (Measure E), and San Diego Unified School District (Measure Z) are provided on various posts of www.LaborIssuesSolutions.com

More Troubling Issues with Bond Finance for Educational Construction

While compiling the comprehensive information provided in this study, California Policy Center researchers identified numerous other troubling aspects of bond finance. School and college districts are evading compliance with the law and making irresponsible decisions. Ordinary voters lack enough data to make an informed vote. Community activists who seek deeper understanding find themselves stymied.

Bad Government Behavior

1. Some School and College Districts Don’t Comply with Proposition 39

Two examples of investigative reports on educational district compliance with Proposition 39 are the San Diego County Taxpayers Association 2015 School Bond Transparency Scorecard and a 2010 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report entitled “School Bond Citizens’ Oversight Committees, Prop 39.” These reports show some districts are close to full compliance while others don’t seem to be complying at all. It appears that two types of districts are broadly failing to comply: (1) small school districts, which may have limited capability to comply, and (2) large school districts routinely accused of fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement.

Some school and college districts ask voters to approve new authority to borrow additional money for facilities construction even though much of the authority from previous bond measures to borrow money has not been used. This is a strategy to circumvent tax and debt limits imposed by state law on individual bond measures, and it leaves millions (and sometimes billions) of dollars in borrowing authority dangling for future school boards to exercise long after voters have forgotten the election.

3. Districts Sell Bonds at a Premium and Use the Extra Money to Pay Fees Related to Selling the Bonds

The California Attorney General’s office is preparing a legal opinion (14-202) on whether school and college districts can use a premium to pay bond issuance fees. The question asked is “May the ‘premium’ generated from a school district bond sale be used to pay for expenses of issuance and other transaction costs?” (See Table 8 for a list of such fees.)

In 2011, the California Attorney General warned the Poway Unified School District that “artificially inflating the interest rate to generate premium” to pay for costs of issuance would be illegal.

The California State Treasurer or a state agency needs to compile a list of bond issues for which buyers paid a premium that the district then used to pay bond issuance fees. How rampant is the practice and how much has it cost California taxpayers?

4. Firms Get Contracts to Prepare a Bond Measure Before the Election and Then Get Contracts to Implement the Bond Measure After the Election

The California Attorney General’s office is preparing a legal opinion (13-304) on whether a party that gets a contract with a school or college district for surveying voters and preparing a bond measure can then get a contract as the bond underwriter (bond broker) for issuances approved by that same bond measure. The question asked is “In connection with a school or community college bond measure, does a district violate state law by contracting with a bond underwriter for both pre-election campaign services and post-election underwriting services?”

5. Is There Exaggeration, Deception, or Outright Fraud When Districts Assess Needs for Another Bond Measure?

Some school and college districts seek to borrow more money for school construction even when their enrollment has been substantially declining for years and is projected to continue declining. Overcrowding would not seem to be a problem in such districts. Is the need legitimate?

A state agency should conduct random audits for several school or college districts to determine the credibility of their facilities plan based on their evaluations of safety, class size reduction and information technology needs. Numerous bond measures include the words “safety” and “security” in the ballot question and statement, insinuating to voters that students and teachers may be physically harmed unless the district can borrow money via bond sales for construction projects. Are there truly legitimate threats to safety and security in schools throughout the state?

6. A Handful of Voters in Future Development Areas Have Given School Districts Massive Authority to Sell Bonds and Put the Bills on Future Residents

When researchers for the California Policy Center developed preliminary charts now in the appendix to this report and began circulating them publicly early in 2015, two bond measures received unexpected attention on the list of 1,147 considered since enactment of Proposition 39.

In both of these cases, a school district created the boundaries of a School Facilities Improvement District — carved out of the entire district — in a sparsely-populated where future development will occur and future schools will be built.

Apparently the Folsom-Cordova Unified School District compared this option to the establishment of a Community Facilities District funded by Mello-Roos fees and chose this financing option. Its Improvement District had a population in 2006 of about 330 persons.

Table 17: Bond Measures Approved by a Handful of Voters for Huge Amounts

Educational District

Folsom Cordova Unified School District SFID No. 3

Roseville Joint Union High School District SFID No. 1

Amount Authorized to Borrow

$750,000,000

$115,000,000

Date of Election

2007-03-27

2007-04-24

Counties

Sacramento

Placer

Measure

M

A

Needed to Pass

66.7%

66.7%

Yes

60

11

No

14

1

Total

74

12

Passage

81.1%

91.7%

Amount Per Vote

$12,500,000

$10,454,545

Shortcomings That Hinder Voters

The California legislature recognizes that some ballot statements for bond measures do not contain enough relevant information for voters. In 2014, Governor Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 2551, introduced by Assemblyman Scott Wilk, which requires each bond issue proposed by a local government to include estimates from official sources of tax rates for certain years, the maximum annual tax rate, and total debt service (the principal and interest that would be required to be repaid if all the bonds are issued and sold). The bill never received a vote in opposition. In 2015, Assemblyman Jay Obernolte introduced Assembly Bill 809, which requires the ballot statement for local tax measures to include information on the amount of money to be raised annually and the rate and duration of the tax to be levied. As of July 13, 2015, the bill was moving through Senate committees after passing the Assembly 57-8 (with 15 not voting).

A 2009 Little Hoover Commission report on bond measures noticed the lack of “fundamental criteria for ballot measures” and recommended a “simple, easy-to-understand report card in the voter guide for all bond measures placed on the ballot.” The problem continues unabated today.

Bond measures tend to be presented to voters in a vacuum, with minimal context about the past history of the district’s bond measures and construction programs. Voters can misinterpret proposed bond measures as a desperate response to a long-standing unaddressed crisis of unsafe, decrepit, and overcrowded classrooms, laboratories, and athletic facilities.

Voters need a chance to consider whether they should approve millions or even billions in new bond authority, even if millions or even billions of money has already been borrowed and millions or billions in existing authority still remains to be spent. This would reveal any history of foolish bond issues or debt acquisition.

As mentioned in Section 5 of this report, a possible reason why the public finally discovered the extreme Capital Appreciation Bond financing arrangements of the Poway Unified School District was the simple and colorful graphics in the Voice of San Diego articles about it. More than ever, American society depends on imagery, charts, and tables for information instead of prose.

3. Voters Need to See the Importance of Assessed Property Valuation and District Enrollment Projections

Projections of the rate of change for assessed property valuation in the district should be among the most important elements in decisions concerning bond issues. Voters need to consider a history of wild swings in assessed property valuation in the district and decide whether projections are realistic or exaggerated.

A report on Capital Appreciation Bonds from the 2013-2014 Orange County Grand Jury recognized “there has been virtually no publicity concerning the implications of debt service repayment for CABs, specifically the magnitude of potentially higher taxes. There is potential for some school districts, through the County, to increase property taxes well beyond what was presented when the bonds were issued in order to repay the CABs.” Results of the Grand Jury’s investigation were depicted in tables. At least three school districts in Orange County predicted assessed property valuation to grow at unrealistically high rates when they asked voters to approve bond measures. As a result, these districts will have to levy tax rates far beyond what was portrayed to voters in order to pay off the Capital Appreciation Bonds.

In addition, voters need to be aware if the school or college district asking to borrow money for construction is experiencing a long-term trend up or down in student enrollment. There are arguments for borrowing a lot of money for facilities construction during a time of dropping enrollment (Wiseburn Unified School District is an example of this deliberate strategy), but the message to voters needs to reflect actual circumstances.

4. Ballot Questions for Bond Measures Deceive and Manipulate Voters

Several ballot questions for proposed community college bond measures have specifically singled out veterans as beneficiaries. As noted in Section 2, polling shows that voters respond positively to the idea that a bond measure will help veterans. As a result, the possibility that veterans will be using facilities funded by bond proceeds gets prominent mention in ballot language.

On June 29, 2015, the Solano County Grand Jury issued a report highly critical of the ballot title and ballot statement for Measure Q, a November 2012 ballot measure that authorized the Solano Community College District to borrow $348 million for construction by selling bonds to investors. The Grand Jury asserted that voters were duped into thinking that proceeds from selling bonds would directly provide classroom instruction and job training for veterans and other students. It suggested that future bond measures conform narrowly to Proposition 39 language and focus on construction of educational facilities:

Finding 1

The language of Measure Q was misleading. While Proposition 39 generally authorizes funding of buildings and land purchases even the name of the measure, “The Solano Community College District Student/Veterans’ Affordable Education Job Training, Classroom Repair Measure,” suggests otherwise.

Recommendation 1

Language used in future school bond proposals be limited to that which is stated in the authorizing statute.

References to veterans is an example of how campaign consultants have developed ballot titles, questions, and summaries that manipulate the emotions of uninformed voters who are looking at a ballot and deciding how to vote. Another example is the claim that “all funds stay local” or “all funds benefit neighborhood schools.” This statement ignores how taxpayers will pay the financial services industry for issuance fees and may end up providing more funds for interest payments to wealthy bond investors than for principal spent on design and construction of neighborhood schools.

These clever campaign tactics would probably withstand legal challenges based on California Elections Code Section 9509, which establishes a standard for a legitimate challenge to a title, question, or statement of a school or college district ballot measure. A complaint must have “clear and convincing proof that the material in question is false, misleading, or inconsistent” with state law.

Grassroots Activism on Bond Measures Is Difficult

1. Municipal Finance Is Confusing, Even for People Motivated to Understand It

As stated in a 2013-14 Orange County Civil Grand Jury report on Capital Appreciation Bonds, “This topic required extensive research. Numerous newspaper articles were reviewed…An extensive Internet search was conducted to learn about the mechanics of bond financing and the related mathematics.” An ordinary person may have difficulty understanding concepts and jargon of municipal finance. It’s also a challenge for anyone without education or experience in accounting to identify and extract relevant information from financial audits and official statements.

In particular, Capital Appreciation Bonds are difficult to comprehend. To complicate matters, accreted interest for this type of debt instrument is portrayed differently depending on whether accounting is done on a “cash basis” or on an “accrual basis.” In the generally accepted accounting principles developed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, each year’s interest payment is included as an expenditure for the year. This is accounting done on a cash basis. But in the generally accepted accounting standards for state and local governments developed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, accreted interest on Capital Appreciation Bonds is not recorded as a current expenditure until the bond matures. This is accounting done on an accrual basis.

Translating these concepts into something easy to understand is critical for the public to evaluate the wisdom of proposed bond issues.

2. Centralized Data Isn’t Available to Compare Debt Finance Conditions of School and College Districts

Where does the public go to find out how a school or college district funds facility construction and how it compares to other educational districts in the county or state?

In most cases, state law has not assigned any state or local agency with the responsibility to collect such information and provide it to the public in an accessible format. Even for information that state law requires to be collected and published — such as waivers from tax and debt limits — agencies are not providing the information in a way that alerts the public to existing or potential problems.

The California State Treasurer’s office has a “California Debt Issuance Database” administered by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission that allows the public to search for certain information about individual bond issues. School boards are required to submit certain information and reports regarding the sale or planned sale of bonds to the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission. This database is better than nothing, but realistically it is not a useful tool for the ordinary citizen.

Many school districts are not posting their state-mandated financial reports on their websites for public access. Useful documents that the public should be able to readily access include PDF versions of annual financial audits and bond program audits.

For cases in which financial reports are not available on the web, adequate response to public records requests is often elusive. E-mailed requests to educational districts to get these reports do not always result in a prompt response. In particular, officials in small rural school districts do not seem responsive to an outside individual or organization requesting the district’s financial information. Researchers for this project struggled to obtain financial audits that would reveal details of Capital Appreciation Bond sales with ratios of debt service to principal that are much worse than the Poway Unified School District.

4. “Private Placements” Sometimes Eliminate Official Statements as a Source of Data

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) database was created and is maintained for the benefit of potential buyers of municipal bonds. Nevertheless, the Official Statements posted on the database are a valuable source of information for members of the general public who are interested in the debt finance and financial status of a state or local government agency.

Some school districts use “private placement” to sell bonds rather than using a more traditional method of selling bonds in the primary market to many investors. This is supposed to allow for lower interest rates on the bonds and save money for taxpayers. Because the individual private investors are considered qualified to do their own research into the credit and financial status of a district, “private placements” for bond sales by educational districts are exempt from the federal requirement to post Official Statements.

Researchers were unable to determine current debt service for several small school districts for which Official Statements were not posted on EMMA. At least two of them (Exeter Union High School District and Columbia Union School District) used private placements for their most recent bond sales. It is likely that every school district missing an Official Statement on EMMA for its most recent bond issue used private placement.

5. Public Information About General Obligation Bonds Varies in Formats and Completeness

In the annual Financial Audits for educational districts, information about general obligation bonds are presented in different ways. Some reports give details about each series of bonds that are issued, while some do not.

The same problem applies to the Official Statements on the EMMA database. Charts that indicate outstanding debt service are presented in different formats. Some charts provide details about principal and interest for each bond measure and some do not. A few Official Statements for educational districts that have substantial bond debt did not even add up the columns.

Official Statements are only produced when bonds are issued, so the most recent information available on the EMMA database can be more than a decade out of date. EMMA only became operational in the late 2000s, so information from the mid-1990s and earlier is often not available.

6. Refunding Bonds and Reauthorization Bonds Complicate Matters

When a school district refunds some of its bonds with a new bond issue, the record becomes fuzzy about how much principal is still owed for each bond measure and bond issue. Some districts have repeatedly issued refunding bonds, thus creating confusion about what bond measures are responsible for creating current debt. Taxpayers in some educational districts are still paying for bond measures approved in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but that fact is now hidden behind more recent refunded bond issues.

Since 2000, sixteen school districts have asked voters to reauthorize previously-approved bond authority, thus complicating the reporting of bond authority and bond debt. When voters reauthorize bond authority in a new election, they trigger new capacity for the district to levy taxes and accumulate debt. GO Reauthorization Bonds®, developed by the municipal debt financial advisory firm Dale Scott & Company, are marketed to districts that have reached their tax and debt limits, want to borrow more money for construction, but also want to avoid extensive sales of Capital Appreciation Bonds as the scheme to circumvent the tax and debt limits.

7. Critical Information Often Can Only Be Found in Old Board Meeting Packets Not Available for Easy Public Access

Perhaps the most important information to evaluate when considering bond issues are the projections of assessed valuation. If such projections are even recorded, they are often only found in presentations that financial advisors make to the board of trustees. Those presentations might or might not be included in old board meeting packets that might or might not be posted on a district website.

How much debt has accumulated as the State of California and its local K-12 school and community college districts relentlessly borrow money for school construction by selling bonds to investors?

No one seems to know. In April 2013, the California Policy Center published a report entitled Calculating California’s Total State and Local Government Debt, which attempted to calculate a reasonable estimate of debt obligations of the State of California and its local governments. The report estimated an astonishing debt total of $1.1 trillion, but researchers could not identify any recent sources to estimate the debt from general obligation bonds issued to finance educational construction.

There is a way to determine the amount of debt service (principal + interest) outstanding for educational districts. Researchers for the California Policy Center were able to add up total aggregate debt service for almost all California local educational districts in which voters approved a bond measure since the November 7, 2000 election.

Debt service for those California local educational districts is $136,500,250,898 as of January 2015.

Put in plain English, between now and 2055, California’s taxpayers will make $137 billion in principal and interest payments to pay back funds that have already been borrowed and spent.

Add this number to the $56,668,673,695 in debt service resulting from the three statewide bond measures for educational construction approved by voters, and the total debt service is $193,168,924,593.

Obviously this debt is substantial, even after accounting for all of the caveats listed below.

As noted below in “Limitations on Using Debt Service Data for Educational Construction,” debt service for some school districts could not be determined, which makes the number determined by the California Policy Center to be lower than exact. In addition, numerous districts are now calling their bonds and issuing refunding bonds, which makes the number determined by the California Policy Center to be higher than exact. We believe these circumstances balance each other out.

Total debt service is about $137 billion for local educational districts where voters approved bond measures since the November 7, 2000 election. Including the three statewide bonds that voters approved since the November 7, 2000 election brings the total debt service to $193 billion.

How Were These Numbers Determined?

Municipal bonds are not bought and sold on Wall Street. Instead of using a centralized place (such as an “exchange”), issuers and investors buy and sell bonds “over the counter” through dealers and brokers registered with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), a quasi-governmental organization overseen by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission. These dealers and brokers act as underwriters or intermediaries between issuers and investors.

Federal law generally requires underwriters in a primary offering of municipal bonds of $1 million or more to obtain and review an “Official Statement” from the issuer of those bonds. Those statements disclose financial information meant to inform a potential buyer and reduce the chance of “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices.” By law these statements have to be posted on a publicly-accessible and free-to-use website: the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board Electronic Municipal Market Access system, or EMMA.

Official statements include a chart that indicates how much aggregate principal and interest the issuer of the bonds would owe each year if the bonds weren’t refunded (called in so new bonds can be issued at a lower interest rate) or paid off early. Different official statements may place the aggregate debt service chart in different locations in an Official Statement. Charts may differ in title, format, or details of content. A few charts may not even total up the annual debt service. But the information is usually available. (Issuers of bonds through “private placement” do not need to post official statements on EMMA, because the information is provided directly to the private buyers.)

California Policy Center researchers used the EMMA database to determine debt service for each educational district where voters approved borrowing money for construction through bond sales after November 7, 2000. (That is the election date when California voters approved Proposition 39 and reduced the threshold for voter approval of bond measures for construction from two-thirds to 55 percent.) Researchers entered each district name into the EMMA system, identified the most recent bond offering or bond refunding from the list of bond issues, downloaded the associated Official Statement, located the aggregate debt service chart, and calculated the total debt service for 2015 and/or later years.

Limitations on Using Debt Service Data for Educational Construction

This data is a big step forward in informing Californians about the tremendous debt accumulated by educational districts that borrowed money for school construction by selling bonds. Nevertheless, the data has limitations. Here are 14 warnings about assessing the data out of context:

1. Some local educational districts have not yet borrowed any money as authorized by voters. Other districts have issued some bonds and plan to issue more bonds soon. Some districts have issued all of their bond authority. This means that debt service may be deceptively low in some districts that haven’t yet begun borrowing with gusto.

2. As mentioned above, educational districts in some circumstances can call in existing bonds and issue refunding bonds at a lower interest rate, thus reducing debt service. For this reason, school districts can argue that they intend to regularly issue refunding bonds, and therefore the amount that taxpayers will end up paying is somewhat less than what is listed for the current debt service.

3. For some educational districts, the current debt service will be paid off in a few years. For other school districts, the current debt service will be paid off in 40 years, thus allowing for a presumption that a long period of steady inflation and substantial increase in total assessed property value will mitigate the debt burden on property owners.

4. An argument can be made that borrowing a lot of money now at currently low interest rates is wise financial management, and debt service therefore is not an important issue to consider.

5. An educational district in a wealthy area can have significant debt service but also have high and stable total assessed property value. That debt service may be foolish, but it is not as dangerous as the same debt service in an less affluent educational district with unstable property values and an uncertain economic future.

6. Debt service becomes foolhardy and dangerous as the amount of interest owed increases relative to the amount of principal owed. Educational districts that issued a lot of Capital Appreciation Bonds in the past 15 years have debt service out of proportion to what they obtained through their construction program.

7. As mentioned above, some California educational districts are now issuing bonds through negotiated placement or private placement, which do not require official statements because the investors are qualified to perform their own assessment of the district’s financial status. Keep in mind that official statements are intended for the benefit of potential public investors, not for the benefit of taxpayers or other interested parties.

Private placements seem to be growing in popularity. Researchers were unable to determine current debt service for several small school districts without official statements on EMMA, and at least two of them (and probably all of them) used private placement for their most recent bond sales. It’s notable that the West Contra Costa Unified School District – perhaps the California educational district taking the most risks with school construction finance – apparently issued $135 million in bonds – including bonds with 40-year maturities – in February 2015 through private placement.

8. Debt service can accumulate from bond issues that occurred decades ago. California’s educational districts were winning approval for bond sales under the Proposition 13 two-thirds threshold for 20 years before Proposition 39, and some of that borrowed money is still being repaid back, with interest. For those school districts, debt service may look disproportionately high relative to the amount of money borrowed from 2001 to 2014.

9. There are a handful of local educational districts that have debt service from bond measures approved in 2000 or earlier but have not asked voters to authorize additional borrowing since the November 7, 2000 election. That debt service is not included in the total reported here. In addition, there are statewide bond measures for educational construction approved before November 7, 2000, including a $9.2 billion bond measure approved by voters in 1998 that included $6.7 billion for K-12 school districts and $2.5 billion for community college districts and California State University and the University of California campuses. The actual total debt service for all statewide bond measures and all local educational districts likely exceeds $200 billion.

10. Several K-12 school districts have merged in the past 15 years. Some official statements segregate debt service for the districts before they merged, and some combine the debt service.

11. Several community college district and K-12 school districts have created “School Facilities Improvement Districts” embedded within the complete jurisdiction of the districts. Some official statements segregate debt service for these subdistricts, and some combine the debt service for the subdistricts with the debt service for the complete district.

12. Certificates of participation, lease revenue bonds, and other schemes for educational districts to borrow money while evading Proposition 13 and Proposition 39 requirements are not included in official statements.

13. Community Facilities Districts funded by Mello-Roos bonds are not included in official statements.

14. Debt service is best considered in conjunction with information in annual financial statements prepared for the educational districts.

Despite these limitations, the debt service amounts available through the official statements posted on EMMA provide new insight into the debt owed by California local educational districts. Voters need to know that borrowing additional money via bond sales for school construction is adding to already existing debt.

Next year California voters may be asked to authorize the State of California to borrow another $9 billion to help K-12 school and community college districts pay for more educational construction. This $9 billion would be obtained by selling bonds to investors and paying it back – with interest – over several decades using the state’s general fund.

Polling has allowed the backers of this initiative to identify the most effective arguments for winning support among voters. Those arguments are listed as “findings and declarations” in the language of the bond measure itself. (See the Request for Title and Summary for Proposed Initiative.) They are cited in various opinion pieces that have appeared in newspapers. And the arguments are heard in the promotional patter of professional signature gatherers at shopping centers.

Most of the arguments are platitudes, facts presented without context, or anecdotes. And no one would know from the arguments that California voters have already approved borrowing about $150 billion in recent years for educational construction.

Voters have approved borrowing about $150 billion for California school construction since Prop 39 passed in 2000. This virtually unknown fact is worthy of highlighting in future public debates.

Recognizing that a lack of balanced factual information compromises the democratic process, the California Policy Center continues to collect, synthesize, and analyze data regarding California educational construction finance. “It’s for the kids and the veterans” is no longer sufficient information for voters considering authorization for the state to borrow another $9 billion.

The State of California alone has $56.7 billion in debt service accumulated from the last three statewide educational bond measures that authorized borrowing a total of $35,766,000,000. Community college districts and K-12 school districts have accumulated an additional $137 billion in debt service. The public needs to know what has already happened before deciding what will happen next.

Part of that understanding includes the impact of Proposition 39. Prop 39 inaugurated a new era of generous borrowing for educational construction in California. Approved by 53.4% of voters in the November 7, 2000 election, it reduced the voter approval threshold for educational construction bond measures (under certain conditions) from two-thirds to 55 percent.

This lowered obstacle encouraged local educational districts to take the risk of proposing many more bond measures at much higher amounts for voters to approve. As shown by the data below, dropping the voter threshold from 66.67% to 55% transformed the approval of educational bond measures from a 50-50 chance to a commonplace outcome.

The California Policy Center believes it is the first and only entity to painstakingly research and present an accurate and comprehensive record of all state and local educational construction bond measures considered by voters from 2001 through 2014.

Some Facts on Voter Consideration of Local and State Bond Measures for Educational Construction

1. Since the passage of Proposition 39, voters in California have been asked 1147 times to authorize local K-12 school districts and community college districts to borrow a total of $124,350,056,744 for educational construction.

2. Of those 1147 bond measures, sixteen (16) were to reauthorize already approved bond authority totaling $730,365,000. If those bond measures are included with the 1131 bond measures to authorize new borrowing authority, the total amount California voters have been asked to authorize or reauthorize is $125,080,421,744.

In most of these 16 cases, school districts reauthorized bond measures during the late 2000s-early 2010s decline in assessed property values in order to circumvent tax and debt limits in state law and allow the further sales of bonds. These reauthorizations were usually depicted in a simple way to voters as continuing an already-approved construction program without increasing debt.

3. Since the passage of Proposition 39, voters in California have been asked three (3) times to authorize the state to borrow a total of $35,766,000,000 for educational construction.

4. What are the grand totals? Since the passage of Proposition 39, voters in California have been asked to authorize the State of California and local K-12 school districts and community college districts to borrow $160,116,056,744 for educational construction. If reauthorized bond authority is added to that amount, the total amount voters have been asked to authorize or reauthorize is $160,846,421,744. (That is $160.8 billion.)

Some Facts on Approval of Local and State Bond Measures for Educational Construction

1. Voters approved 911 of the 1147 local educational bond measures, for a 79.42% approval rate for bond measures.

2. Voters approved $109,620,418,737 out of the $124,350,056,744 proposed to voters, for a 88.15% approval rate for the amount of bond authority.

The amount of authority approved by voters is a higher percentage than the number of bond measures approved by voters because larger bond measures proposed by larger educational districts passed at a higher rate than smaller bond measures proposed by smaller districts.

3. Voters approved all sixteen (16) bond measures (among the 1147 bond measures) to reauthorize bond authority that voters had already approved in early elections. If reauthorized bond authority is included, voters approved $110,350,783,737 out of the $125,080,421,744 proposed to voters, for a 88.22% approval rate for the amount of bond authority.

4. Voters approved all three (3) statewide educational bond measures, for a total of $35,766,000,000 to match with local educational bond expenditures.

5. What are the grand totals? Since the passage of Proposition 39, voters in California have authorized the State of California and local K-12 school districts and community college districts to borrow a grand total of $145,386,418,737 for educational construction. If reauthorized bond authority is added to that amount, the total amount voters have authorized or reauthorized is $146,116,783,737.

Some Facts on Rejection of Local and State Bond Measures for Educational Construction

1. Voters rejected 236 of the 1147 local educational bond measures, for a 20.6% rejection rate for bond measures.

2. Voters rejected $14,729,638,007 out of the $124,350,056,744 proposed to voters, for a 11.85% rejection rate for bond authority. If reauthorization of bond authority is added to the amount proposed to voters, the rejection rate for bond authority is 11.78%.

The amount of authority rejected by voters is a lower percentage than the number of bond measures rejected by voters because, as noted above, larger bond measures proposed by larger educational districts passed at a higher rate than smaller bond measures proposed by smaller districts.

1. A cumulative approval percentage of 60.8% is calculated by dividing the total number of Yes votes by the total number of recorded votes for all 1147 local educational bond measures and the three state bond measures since Proposition 39 was enacted. Obviously 60.8% is higher than 55% and lower than two-thirds.

2. Of the 911 local educational bond measures approved by voters, 857 were approved with a 55% threshold and 54 were approved with a two-thirds (66.67%) threshold. Most of these bond measures under the two-thirds threshold were approved in 2001 and 2002, during the first two years after voters approved Proposition 39. Since the November 2008 election, voters have only approved two local bond measures for educational construction under the two-thirds threshold. In 2014 elections, only one bond measure was subject to two-thirds voter approval (a bond measure for Vallejo City Unified School District that failed because it received only 61.5% voter approval.)

The few educational districts that now propose bond measures that require two-thirds approval instead of 55% approval do so only to evade certain requirements in Proposition 39 or in state law. A common motivation is avoiding legislative requirements imposed in the California Education Code that limit the amount of bonds issued as a percentage of total assessed property value of the district and limit the amount of tax required to pay off the debt from the bond measure.

12. If the 857 bond measures approved under a 55% threshold were considered under the old Proposition 13 two-thirds threshold in place before Proposition 39, only 369 of the 857 local educational bond measures approved by voters would have passed, while 488 of those bond measures would have failed. Those 488 bond measures authorized educational districts to borrow $57,628,510,725.

One lingering success of the Right in California is the public’s continued association of taxpayers’ organizations with fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and limited government. Statewide groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and regional groups such as the San Diego County Taxpayers Association maintain credibility as leaders in resisting foolhardy tax increases and wasteful spending.

This reputation translates into political power. In 2000, various interest groups wanted California voters to approve what became Proposition 39, a ballot measure that reduced the threshold from 2/3 to 55% for voter approval of K-12 school districts and community college districts to borrow money for construction by selling bonds. To create the impression of responsible oversight for spending, Prop 39 required the establishment of a Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, with the requirement that “One member shall be active in a bona fide taxpayers’ organization.”

Not surprisingly, labor unions are cleverly trying to hide behind alleged taxpayers’ organizations as a way to advance their own political agenda, which typically entails higher taxes and more government spending. One example is the San Diego-based “Middle Class Taxpayers Association,” which succeeded in 2011 in getting the Southwest Community College District board to boot a representative of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association from the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee and replace her with their own representative.

The new “bona fide taxpayers’ organization” representative was the political director of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 36 and Local 831. As you have probably guessed by now, construction unions wanted to neutralize any internal resistance to their lobbying campaign for the college board of trustees to require their contractors to sign a union Project Labor Agreement. (That requirement is now in effect.)

Then there’s the Richmond-based “Contra Costa County Senior Taxpayers Group.” It issued a letter in 2012 critical of a study produced by the head of the National University System Institute for Policy Research, who was scheduled to speak at a meeting of the legitimate Contra Costa Taxpayers Association. Little information is available on the web about this group, but considering that it seems to pop up only when construction unions are lobbying for Project Labor Agreements, it’s obvious that this group serves union interests.

Another example is revealed in the January 29, 2014 column “Lack of Leadership a Big Obstacle in Updating Prop 13” by George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times. It asks “Are California voters ready yet to change Proposition 13 so that all corporations pay their fair share of property taxes?”

Corporations are not paying their “fair share” in taxes, according to the perspective of this column. A reader might wonder what “fair share” means, and think there’s a balanced, objective, data-based argument when reading this:

Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., has been pushing for years to modify Prop. 13 and close the corporate loopholes.

“We’re trying to organize, educate and expose what’s really happening,” he says. “We’re developing data and looking at some of the largest landowners in the state. If it turns out people don’t care, they don’t care.”

“My modest goal is to get it out front and center so people can have a discussion and not avert their eyes.”

According to the columnist, this taxpayers’ organization has a “modest” goal for a public “discussion” about an injustice it has identified in the tax code. Sounds reasonable. Perhaps the group wants corporations to pay their “fair share,” so that ordinary taxpayers can get a tax cut.

Or perhaps not.

Mr. Skelton has written for the Los Angeles Times since 1974, and new challenges face newspaper columnists in 2014 that were not around 40 years ago. One of them is busybody readers and their access to a newfangled “series of tubes” called the Internet that can be filled with information, such as the real identity of taxpayer groups. Any gadfly who wonders why a taxpayer organization wants to increase taxes can research it and expose it through social media.

Done! The California Tax Reform Association – of course – is yet another union front group. In 2012, 60 percent of its revenue came from these unions:

Still not sure? Here is the 2012 board of directors for the California Tax Reform Association:

The group hasn’t posted on its web site since May 23, 2012. That’s one highly-credible source! But it’s a convenient one, and deceiving too.

A lesson for citizens: just because an organization calls itself a taxpayers’ group does not necessarily mean it doesn’t want to raise your taxes or control government spending. Plenty of union money and personnel are being used to undermine one of the last defenses of fiscal responsibility in California. Check every group carefully and expose the union control to the public when you find it.

Kevin Dayton is the President & CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC, and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DaytonPubPolicy.

Another year brings another rush of costly union construction monopolies to K-12 school districts and community college districts in California.

Consider that voters in 2012 authorized 115 California educational districts to borrow a grand total of $15,266,651,190 ($15.3 billion) by selling bonds to investors, and you can see why schools are such an alluring target for special interest groups with special friends in elected office. (This amount does not include state matching grants to be funded from the $35.8 billion in bond sales authorized by voters in the mid-2000s.)

As readers of www.UnionWatch.org generally recognize, elected board members of K-12 and community college districts in the state’s major metropolitan areas often have political goals and ideological visions far more ambitious than simply overseeing a district that efficiently builds schools at the best price for taxpayers and students.

Educational districts are therefore typically easy pickings for union officials to lobby for Project Labor Agreements and get control of work without having to earn it.

Here are the latest setbacks for fair and open bid competition on taxpayer-funded educational construction in California:

Theschool board of the El Monte Union High School District is expected to vote at its March 6, 2013 meeting to require construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement withthe Los Angeles-Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council in order to work on projects funded by borrowed money from Measure D, a $148 million bond measure approved by district voters in November 2008. This union deal was originally pushed in 2011 by a school board member seeking election to the California State Assembly; he ultimately dropped out of the race and resigned his board seat. For more information, see After 20 Months of Antics, Board of El Monte Union High School District Poised to Require Contractors to Sign a Project Labor Agreement.

At its February 12, 2013 meeting, the school board of the Lynwood Unified School District voted to require construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with the Los Angeles-Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council in order to work on projects funded by borrowed money from Measure K, a $93 million bond measure barely approved by 57% of district voters in November 2012. For more information, see Lynwood Unified School District’s Bond-Funded Construction Falls to a Project Labor Agreement.

The board of the Ohlone Community College District(within the cities of Fremont, Newark, and Union City) voted on February 13, 2013 to require construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County in order to work on 16 projects or categories of projects, totaling $265 million, funded by borrowed money obtained from bond sales authorized by the $349 million Measure G, approved by district voters in November 2010. In the 2000s, the district had managed to build projects under the $150 million Measure A (approved by voters in March 2002) without a union monopoly, but the board is more enlightened now. See Another California Community College District to Give Unions a Monopoly on Bond-Funded Construction: Project Labor Agreement at Ohlone Community College District.

Some people in Solano County expected the Solano College Governing Board to waste money on union schemes and other nonsense.

On February 6, 2013, the Governing Board of the Solano Community College District heard a staff report about requiring construction contractors to sign a Project Labor Agreement with the Napa-Solano Building and Construction Trades Council as a condition of working on projects funded by proceeds from $348 million in bond sales authorized in November 2012 by 63.52% of Solano County voters as Measure Q. Representatives of construction trade associations and the local Central Solano Citizen/Taxpayer Group spoke against the proposal. A vote is expected at a meeting in March. See Governing Board for Solano Community College District in California Hears Debate Over Project Labor Agreement on $348 Million Bond Measure Q.

Why are K-12 school districts and community college districts so bold about imposing these government-mandated union agreements for construction? The problem seemed to begin with the enactment of Proposition 39, a statewide ballot measure approved by 53.4% of voters in November 2000.

That statewide ballot measure reduced the vote percentage needed to pass bond measures authorizing bond sales from 66.67% (two-thirds) to 55 percent under certain conditions. It virtually guaranteed voter authorization of bond sales in the state’s major metropolitan areas and began California’s massive accumulation of debt for educational construction at the state and local levels of government.

The success rate for approval of individual bond measures in November 2012 was 86%, and the success rate for approval of the total dollar amount of proposed bond sales in November 2012 was 92%. It’s evident that voters in a general election will almost always authorize educational districts to borrow money through bond sales. Educational districts don’t need to worry about how they spend the money.

One could argue that the same lack of accountability that leads to government-mandated Project Labor Agreements is also the basis for foolish sales of Capital Appreciation Bonds, the shameless awarding of financial and service contracts to donors to bond campaigns, and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money on iPads (another practice authorized by Proposition 39).

Kevin Dayton is the President and CEO of Labor Issues Solutions, LLC and is the author of frequent postings about generally unreported California state and local policy issues at www.laborissuessolutions.com.